The Swamp

How's it goin', eh? We have our first encounter with the friendly Canadians who have stopped by with a trade caravan, accompanied by kangaroos for some reason. We sell them a couple of BFJ's sculptures for some extra cash.


Well, it was the calm before the storm, but the Karens have detected our presence. We must have been having a cookout in a public park or put the wrong topping on their fro-yo or something. In a show of arrogance they send just one, thinking she'll be able to handle us all, armed with what looks like a cross between a lightsaber and a dildo. She's also equipped with a force shield against bullets.


We take defensive positions as she approaches our base. Eventually our shots are able to penetrate her shields, and Sabo rushes in to finish her off with a blow from a steel mace. The green mist you see is from a device Imperials wear that causes their gear to disintegrate upon dying. Fucking Karens can't share.


You wanted skullspike? Here you go. This will ward off future intruders (or probably not).

Within a few days the Karens are back, still just sending one at a time.


While this one attacks from the west, a raider arrives from the hostile tribe of The Alogove Kinship. This one is named Ryan, which I'm pretty sure is not Swamp Ryan unless he's cosplaying as unibrow Richard Simmons.


Despite the multi-directional attack, we're able to make relatively easy work of both of them. More skullspikes, coming right up.

The next day we get a distress call from a refugee who has defected from the Karens and is being pursued. Hey look, it's rass!


rass grew up in a wealthy, socially prominent family and was given an elite education. He put this to use as a military commissar who spied on troops to ensure they were ideologically pure and did not show any sign of dissent.* He is highly sensitive to psychic phenomena and wishes to use his mental ordeals as an inspiration to create art, despite a relative lack of talent. He likes animals and is also packing a machine gun.

*Does this count as irony?

Shortly after rass's rival, his pursuer appears, a single Karen named Metoches. We make quick work of her as well. Send more Karens, Karens!


Now that we're a somewhat established colony, people are lobbying for someone to be appointed to the "moral guide" role of Business Horse, who will take on responsibilities such as counseling and conducting our festivals. We'll give the role to Syb since he has the highest Social skill, but this may cause tensions when the "real" Business Horse shows up. Here's his bestowing ceremony.


So here's the thing with rass. Because he originally came from the Karens faction, he still subscribes to their ideology, so we'll need to "convert" him to Swamp-ism. Syb in his new role is able to make conversion attempts that decrease someone's certainty their current ideology by a certain percentage. His first attempt takes rass down from 92% to 60%, so a few more cycles and rass should truly be "one of us."

I am beyond delighted to start the week with a lecture from Sybian on "life's purpose"

So in previous games I had just completely overwritten the randomly-generated full character names with your Swamp handles, but this time around I thought I'd leave some of them in and just put your handle in the nickname field. Here are your full in-game names in case you're looking for an alias:

Nolan 'bengal' Bills
Minoru 'chedda' Dougherty
Rick 'Sabo' Merced
Hugo 'Sybian' Zink
Zev 'BFJ' Battad
Nestor 'BSF21' Adkins
Isidros 'rass' Inelisis

tennbengal wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 8:23 am I am beyond delighted to start the week with a lecture from Sybian on "life's purpose"

Then subscribe to my podcast, "The Sybian Shakes Your Soul," available on Spotify.

First response from someone who is currently in the game gets to be a nobleman with the potential to have The Force-like powers. Will pick one myself after about 20 min if no one answers.

Hey yo

DAMMIT

So here's a look at how our base is shaping up after having some time to move past basic survival. We now have individual rooms for each colonist plus a few extra for new joiners, along with some new workshop spaces, and a generator and solar panels so we can start running electricity.


A lone person appears on the horizon, frantically explaining that he is pursued by a pack of angry beavers and seeking shelter. Hey look, it's P.D.X.!


Red 'P.D.X.' Ingram grew up working in his parents' shop dealing in exotic artifacts. He later became a military officer posted on a planet far away from any combat zone, where he spent most of his time pursuing his hobbies. As a result of his officer background, he refuses to perform menial work such as cleaning or hauling. He is a talented artist and good fighting hand-to-hand.

Surely enough a pack of beavers are on P.D.X.'s tail, but we take a good defensive position and are able to pick them off without much difficulty.


Note: P.D.X.'s original character nickname was "Smelly" and this quest was called "Smelly and the Beavers."

So, going to try something new here. We'll let P.D.X. mimic his real-life self by being an artist, but to stay out of BFJ's way I'll use a mod that adds paintings to the game. We can have an art-off between the two and compare the descriptions of their works.


Here are some of their early works, you be the judge:

BFJ:
- a combat drone surrounded by doctors
- a gunsmith riding a lobster wearing an evening gown
- a solitary explorer near a field

P.D.X.:
- an abstracted rendering of bliss
- a lawyer playing chess with thousands of gerbils (aka the 'Richard Gere Class-Action Suit')
- Sabo "enjoying himself" playing horseshoes near a teak tree that "represents thrusting"

Oh shit! BSF21 is going about his business when a hungry cougar pounces on him out near the crop fields. rass and BFJ rush to the scene, but unfortunately not before the cougar relentlessly mauls BSF21 to death. rass unloads with his machine gun and quickly brings down the cougar, but it's just seconds too late.


Here's a log of BSF21's demise, which could also read like the worst erotic fiction ever.


We bury BSF21 after his sadly short tenure with us. Since he was a later joiner no one "wins" the first-to-die poll.

Maybe the cougar overheard that last conversation and was inspired. Thanks syb.

Your picture of BSF has a microphone and "norm" near it..nice tribute.

Johnny Carwash wrote: ↑Wed Sep 15, 2021 6:47 am He later became a military officer posted on a planet far away from any combat zone, where he spent most of his time pursuing his hobbies. As a result of his officer background, he refuses to perform menial work such as cleaning or hauling.

Johnnie wrote:P.D.X.? Sounds more like R.E.M.F.!

RIP bsf.

Also, audible laughter here...

an abstracted rendering of bliss
- a lawyer playing chess with thousands of gerbils (aka the 'Richard Gere Class-Action Suit')
- Sabo "enjoying himself" playing horseshoes near a teak tree that "represents thrusting"

This reminds me of going to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and getting infuriated by a room half-full of Cy Twombly paintings.

I'm quite enjoying this. Thanks again, Mr. Wash.

bapo! wrote: ↑Wed Sep 15, 2021 9:25 am
This reminds me of going to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and getting infuriated by a room half-full of Cy Twombly paintings.

I'm quite enjoying this. Thanks again, Mr. Wash.

I Goggled Cy Twombly and I'm also angry. His style is described as "repetitive lines and scribbles." His work look like a two year old taking a crayon to a wall.

Dude just ripped off the cover of High Violet.

Chased by angry beavers to a land of cougars and Karens is oddly spot-on.

The Sybian wrote: ↑Wed Sep 15, 2021 9:57 am

bapo! wrote: ↑Wed Sep 15, 2021 9:25 am
This reminds me of going to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and getting infuriated by a room half-full of Cy Twombly paintings.

I'm quite enjoying this. Thanks again, Mr. Wash.

I Goggled Cy Twombly and I'm also angry. His style is described as "repetitive lines and scribbles." His work look like a two year old taking a crayon to a wall.

Did you pick up on where he went to college (and where his dad worked)? His dad was an athletic star. Was the golf coach (4 decades), swimming coach, helped the baseball team, and athletic director. Cool article about his dad-https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/cy-twombly/

Passed my required swim test as a freshman in the pool named in his honor.

Don't get his art, but appreciate his use of green (Cy the artist/his foundation are big donors to the school).

Green is my favorite color too.

Here's another lazy Twombly painting. Just throw some text on a canvas and call it finished.

I thought that I had complained about Twombly here before, but I couldn't find it. I'm sure rass will. I'm like Homer Simpson with The Blue Man Group, forever complaining about Twombly. (And neutral-zone interference. And Twitter.)

wlu_lax6 wrote: ↑Wed Sep 15, 2021 6:59 am Your picture of BSF has a microphone and "norm" near it..nice tribute.

It appears I died doing what I loved. Recreating classic Norm bits and performing them for our food supply in an effort to entertain it.

Just happy to have brought a little light into Rimworld 21 for...1.5 days

BSF21 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 16, 2021 8:31 am It appears I died doing what I loved.

Getting eaten by a cougar?

Johnny Carwash wrote: ↑Thu Sep 16, 2021 8:47 am

BSF21 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 16, 2021 8:31 am It appears I died doing what I loved.

Getting eaten by a cougar?

Literal coffee on keyboard laughing at this.

Every once in a while I see Rimworld pop up on Humblebundle at a discounted price and think about buying it. And then realize that I bet the game is fine but the real enjoyment is due to the hard work that Carwash puts in editing/storytelling the game for our laughter.

So just another Carwash appreciation post.

Johnny Carwash wrote: ↑Thu Sep 16, 2021 8:47 am

BSF21 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 16, 2021 8:31 am It appears I died doing what I loved.

Getting eaten by a cougar?

Love it!

So here's the nobleman thing. The Republic of Balcaga, which is the "good guy" empire in this game, has asked us to build a monument for them within our base. In the return, they will bestow one of with the lowest title of nobility, "Freeholder." That will be chedda due him calling dibs a few days ago. The Republic sends us the blueprints and we build the monument to their specifications, which turns out to be a mind-blowing work of architectural genius that really has to be seen to be believed:


From this point the Republic will periodically send us new quests, which we can complete in exchange for raising chedda's title along with other rewards. chedda's noble titles also give him access to "psycaster" powers, which are sort of the game's equivalent of The Force.

A while later we have our first encounter with the Space Taliban, who decided to attack our skullspikes for some reason, either because they want to destroy our property or are confusing them for actual people.


We mobilize for battle and quickly dispatch the two Taliban, who get to be featured on the skullspikes they wanted to destroy.


A couple days later another transport pod crashes nearby with someone inside. Hey look, it's wlu_lax!


Otto 'wlu_lax' O'Neill grew up in a tribal society where his parents abandoned him as a child for being "sickly," but beat all odds to survive on his own. He showed a talent for taming and handling wild animals, becoming his adopted tribe's animal keeper. He is also pretty good at crafting. He has an annoying voice, in case anyone was really missing BSF21. wlu_lax quickly decides to join us after we rescue him and patch up his wounds.

Note that wlu_lax belongs to the "Dirty Hippies" ideology. Normally we want to be pretty tolerant, but a few facets of his beliefs are going to strongly conflict with the way we run our colony--most importantly, the way he gets offended each time we cut down our tree. To keep things stable we'll work on converting him to Swamp-ism.

Alright, time for some relic-hunting. We get our first hint of news about the legendary Swamp artifact, The Front Page!


Our technology research has progressed to the point that we can build advanced electronic devices, allowing us to set up a communications console to detect and interact with passing ships. Soon enough, we get a signal that an orbiting space drone contains possible information on the whereabouts of The Front Page. We're able to force the craft to land nearby.

Now comes the hard part. We'll need to hack into the drone's computer, but have alerted the Space Taliban who will send raiders, believing the drone is full of treasure. BFJ, who is our most tech-savvy guy, will do the hacking while the others stand guard.


Sure enough, a couple Taliban arrive on the scene but we quickly bring them down. BFJ completes the hack and scurries away with the intel just before the drone self-destructs.

Following our success, we take a break to celebrate Festivus with the Airing of the Grievances, with typical Swamp topics of discussion:


The event goes over so well, we get notice that a new Swamper is joining us. Hey look, it's Pruitt! Did we even invite him? Do we allow Canadians?


Callum 'Pruitt' Souter was discovered by a primitive tribe as a baby, the only survivor of a crashed spacecraft. He grew up to become his tribe's expert in erecting (heh) structures, giving him a strong Construction skill. He is a nice guy who gets along with everyone, but in somewhat of a contradiction is greedy and expects to have a more impressive bedroom than anyone else.

Here's an update on our competing artists' latest works:

BFJ:
- an octopus holding a dagger
- bengal visiting BSF21's grave while BSF21's ghost watches nearby with a happy expression
- some "wild abstract shape"

P.D.X.:
- a solitary artist near a lake
- Sabo playing horseshoes, "tense with energy" (but no sign of the teak tree this time)
- I'll let this last one speak for itself:

wlu_lax meanwhile takes it upon himself to change his appearance so as to better reflect his hippie worldview, which...what the fuck, wlu_lax? We really need to finish converting him.


Alright, the intel we gathered from hacking the drone pays off, as we get another quest that can get us closer to The Front Page:


Here's the location (white square; the blue house is our colony). It's about a day and a half's journey through rocky terrain:


Time to strategize. Despite the foreboding description, the quest log shows this one as low difficulty, so hopefully we'll be able to handle it. Sending out 3-4 guys should be enough. I should add that I've never done this specific type of relic quest before in the game, so I'm in uncharted territory here as well. The danger will come from splitting up the group - not just the threat to those who head out, but the possibility those who stay behind will be undermanned in case of a raid.

My preliminary plan is to pick Sabo, rass, wlu_lax and Pruitt as the four who head out, but I'm open to suggestions. I'll play this out over the weekend.

Operation Send the New Guys into the Foreboding Ancient Structure While Sabo and Rass Chill Outside and Wait?

“Sabo spoke about America’s persecution of white men.”

Making "The Front Page" a relic was genius.

Maybe we'll finally discover WTF "del.icio.us" was.

Also...I knew skull spike was the move.

wlu_lax6 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 16, 2021 12:22 pm Every once in a while I see Rimworld pop up on Humblebundle at a discounted price and think about buying it. And then realize that I bet the game is fine but the real enjoyment is due to the hard work that Carwash puts in editing/storytelling the game for our laughter.

So just another Carwash appreciation post.

Thanks for this, by the way.

Also, I liked your "Norm" reference from earlier (even if it wasn't intentional.)

The game does an excellent job portraying the clothing, specifically Pruitt's Canadian tuxedo.